Fountain Hills Unified School District’s goal is to prepare students to venture out and succeed in the world, but there is a fair share of successful graduates who have come back to their alma mater to help the next generation of Falcons soar.

When this series was started there were nine staff members working across the three FHUSD campuses who attended the district when they were students. A recent hire has brought that number to 10.

This is the third article in a series profiling the FHUSD staff who returned to the nest.

Matt Pugliano

Matt Pugliano has been living in Fountain Hills for 23 years, originally moving to town with his family in July of 1996.

He attended Four Peaks Elementary School and his middle school years were spent on the high school campus, as Fountain Hills Middle School had not been built yet. He graduated from FHHS in 2005.

Pugliano originally thought his career was going to revolve around a baseball diamond or the soccer pitch, but now you can find him in the classroom shaping minds at Fountain Hills Middle School.

“I originally wanted to teach as a conduit to coaching, but once I got into the classroom I really fell in love with the learning process,” Pugliano explained. “Two influential people who really helped me become the teacher I am today are Sue Burcham, who was the AP history teacher when I was at FHHS, and Mike Briguglio, the head baseball coach. I still talk to Coach Briguglio to this day. I often turn to him for help in my current coaching career and he has become a close personal friend.”

Like many of his fellow students turned staff, working in FHUSD was the dream for Pugliano.

“I always wanted to teach and coach here, but I got my first break when Mr. Brennan gave me an interview for the eighth grade English position,” Pugliano said. “I taught at FHMS for two years before they reduced the staffing. I spent some time in Mesa teaching before returning to FHMS when Mrs. Olson retired.

“It’s a really neat experience to teach where I grew up. I've taught siblings of my classmates and now I'm getting some kids of theirs!”

Along with teaching his friends’ kids, Pugliano has also taught the children of his former teachers, like FHHS math teacher Cristine Barsema’s kids.

Pugliano is also the FHHS boys soccer team head coach and the baseball team’s assistant coach. He played both sports when he was a student at the high school.

“Being the head coach of the program which I am an alumnus of is pretty sweet, plus I also get to organize our alumni game, so I get a chance to see former teammates as well as former players,” Pugliano said. “I know some of my players roll their eyes when I give the old ‘back in my day...’ type of speeches!”

Jason Henslin

Jason Henslin has been in Fountain Hills since 1987, when his family moved here for work.

Like Pugliano, Henslin attended Four Peaks Elementary School, middle school on the high school campus and then graduated from FHHS in 2002.

Henslin will be 36 this year and, for him, that marks a certain milestone for his life in Fountain Hills.

“For some reason it feel significant because I was 18 when I graduated and now it’s been 18 years since graduating,” Henslin said. “It’s like a whole other lifetime has happened.”

At the high school Henslin serves as an intervention counselor. He didn’t initially go to work in the school system, however. It was a movie in 2010 that lit the desire to come back,

“To get specific I saw this documentary called ‘Searching for Superman,’ about school and school systems in the U.S. that needed a hero,” Henslin said. “It really sparked an interest in me and made me realize that I want to get back to coaching. I want to be in the schools and, when it comes down it, I have always felt more comfortable one on one with people as opposed to big groups; so that’s why I chose counseling.”

Henslin is also the FHHS football head coach and said he feels that his history with the team is one of his best assets.

“I try to bring back the history of the program,” Henslin said. “Like this past week we played Payson, our Battle of the Beeline rivalry game, which I created to show that (our schools) playing each other doesn’t just go back two or three years, it goes 20 years back.”